The Girl's Guide to Traveling the Universe
by Rose Layla Evans
Summary: The cookie dough or the freaky light show? Jess wasn't sure which came first, but after the cookie dough came the food poisoning and after the food poisoning came the moving mannequins. She was so suing the universe as soon as she could walk in a straight line.
1. Chapter 1

Before she got the food poisoning to end all food poisonings, Jess Street was having a great day. Her eyeliner had cooperated with her and her hair did the thing were it dried into non frizzy waves (huzzah!). It was almost midnight and she was making cookies in her flannel candy cane pajama pants and grey shirt three sizes too big with a hole the size of her fist by the armpit, because she could. Her first week as an intern at the senator's office had gone awesome all things considered, well if you factored out the incident with the copier, and she wanted to celebrate. Hence the making of chocolate chip cookies.

As she was gingerly mixing the flour in, thunder rattled the window. Summer thunderstorms weren't all that uncommon in this particular part of the States, so she kept jamming out to Beyoncé. After the third window rattling crack of thunder, Jess finally looked up to see purple lightning flash across the glass. She shrugged and tucked a piece of dark hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. That's when things got weird. All she needed was the intro music from the Twilight Zone to really amp up the creep factor. She had Beyoncé's "Diva" instead.

She walked over to the window and peered out into the skyline. There was the purple lighting again, but immediately after that gold lightning lit up the clouds, briefly illuminating the shape of a wolf. She flinched and took a step back, getting vague _Prisoner of Azkaban_ vibes. But Jess was determined to have cookies, so she went back to her mixing bowl. Two hours later she had forgotten all about the light show and was laying on the bathroom tile in extreme pain vowing to never eat raw cookie dough again.

She must have fallen asleep somehow after the last bout of vomiting because she woke up. She swished her tongue around her mouth to get rid of the dryness and rolled over onto her side. Her body ached and she felt weak. Awesome. At least the nausea was gone, but there was no way she was attempting to put anything other than Sprite or chicken broth into her stomach. It was then that she noticed something was off. Like, a machine gun in Henry the VIII's court off. First, that was not tile she was laying on which led her to believe that somehow she was no longer in the bathroom, and that second, she was not alone.

A man in a leather jacket stood in front of her facing a vat of a bubbling something. Jess sat up and leaned against one of the metal supports, nudging a pipe out of the way. The bubbling mass rose to form more of a defined blob and started snarling. Leather jacket guy started talking about constitutional rights and invasions which was far more interesting than what the blonde and the other guy were doing.

His voice was too distinct sounding to be part of a dream, the voices in her dreams always sounded like her own. Which left one of two possibilities. That her cookie dough was somehow laced with drugs or this was actually happening. She wasn't sure which possibility she preferred. On the one hand drugs which was bad on multiple levels or the blob thing was real. She eyed it with distaste and decided keeping her mouth shut was the smartest choice. She pushed aside the nagging feeling that this was somehow familiar and continued to watch.

Just as she settled on non-interference, moving mannequins grabbed leather jacket and then there was lightning, again. She knew enough to guess at what the blob planned and what the vile of liquid would do. She grabbed the pipe, managed to stand up and walked more or less in a line towards creepy mannequin #1. Well, it was more like a squiggle but it counted. Everybody was distracted by blondie chopping at the chain for them to notice Jess until she was right on top of the mannequin. She planted her feet like her mom had taught her and swung with her hips and creepy mannequin #1 went flying into the vat of grossness. She registered movement on her peripheral and turned in time to see mannequin #2 tumbling down. She stumbled and fell onto her butt, because of course she did.

"Everything's out of focus," she said.

She saw leather jacket let go of the blonde and kneel in front of her, but she had more pressing concerns. Like, not fainting. She was a freaking athlete for goodness sake and she would not pass out. Leather jacket was talking to her, but she put her head to her knees and breathed deeply like her track coach taught her. Leather jacket made a grumbling sort of noise and scooped her up and ran towards a blue blur which was not good for her dizziness at all. The blue blur solidified into a blue box and she squinted at it. She's shifted in his arms and then put down inside against a wall. It's not until then that she realized she's still holding the pipe. She decided that the floor is just as good as any place to fall asleep and she is not fainting because _this is a voluntary decision_ and then she's out.

There's a whirring noise near her ear and someone muttering. She forced her eyes open and comes face to face with leather jacket. She's on a hospital looking bed. She felt better than when she went to sleep, well enough that she batted the metal contraption away with one hand. She stared at him. He stared back. There's metal under her hand and she realized she still hasn't let go of the pipe.

LINE BREAK

"Silly human, getting sick from raw eggs."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"I scanned you with my sonic screwdriver. Gave you a shot to help rehydrate you."

"You a doctor then? Arguing with weird blob things just a hobby?"

He grinned. "I'm the Doctor."

"Yeah, I gathered." She loosened her grip on the pipe.

"What's your name?"

"Jess."

"Nice to meet you Jess. Now, how did get to this universe?"

"What the flip are you talking about?"

 **A/N Hello! This one has been in the works for awhile so I'm really excited. Do you prefer bacon or sausage? Let me know in a review!**


	2. Chapter 2

"You don't belong here. Everything's just a tiny bit off," he said.

The nagging sense of the familiar was back in full force and the overachieving part of her brain jumped up and down. She rubbed her forehead.

"I know I was a little loopy earlier but we did enter into a blue box?"

"Technically yes."

"And you said you were the Doctor?" Her heart rate picked up.

He looked at her like she was stupid and nodded.

"Well the fortune cookie I had yesterday did say a great journey awaited me."

The "how stupid are you?" look was back in full force.

"Am I on the TARDIS by chance?"

"How could you possibly know that?"

"I'm taking that as a yes," Jess said.

She laughed, then stopped when it hurt her stomach muscles. "Can I see? Space I mean. I don't think I'm going to accept it unless I do, that I really am in a different universe."

The Doctor looked like he would really rather interrogate her but with a gruff "fine" he's leading her out of the med bay and into a hallway. She walked in a less curvy line than before but she was still a tad light headed from expelling the contents of her stomach, multiple times. They passed through what looks like the control room and he opened a door. She stayed a few steps behind him. He looked back at her, impatient. The Earth was below them and a satellite orbited it. Jess turned her head and there were the stars, clearer than she had ever seen them. Even clearer than that time when she went camping with her brothers in the middle of nowhere, Arizona.

Her eyes were wide and her hand covered her mouth. No blurriness, she could feel the coolness of the metal on her feet and there was no way her body would hurt this much if she was dreaming. So, her working hypothesis was that somehow she was in a different universe. A universe were _Doctor Who_ was real. Which sucked because she had never watched the show and only had a vague idea what it was about because was on Pinterest.

"Why couldn't I have been whisked away to a universe were Harry Potter was real?" And yes that was a whine in her voice.

LINE BREAK

"And you're okay with the fact that you're just a character in a T.V. show?"

There was a broad grin on his face. "There's an infinite number of parallel universes, why not one where we're all television characters?"

She sat on the jump seat and stared as he fiddled with some of the controls.

"It's not like you can spoil much anyway," he said.

True, Jess had compared her knowledge to watching a two minute clip of highlights from a football game.

"And I can't ever go back?"

"Before, I could take you back easy. But it's impossible now."

She picked up enough from his body language to not to pursue that line of inquiry further and shoved all thoughts of home to the side.

"And you're fine with me just staying here?"

"You don't have a home anymore," he said with his back turned to her.

She undid her tight ponytail and shook out her hair. "So, time travel huh?"

He stilled and then looked at her. "You're brilliant!"

"Thanks…"

"I completely forgot, I've gotten old. Old and stupid."

He pushed a lever and there was an alarming wheezing sound. She gripped the seat. He ran to the door and poked his head out.

"Did I mention it travels in time?"

Blondie ran through the door and just sort of stopped when she saw Jess.

"Hi." Jess waved.

"I'm Rose."

"Jess."

"Tell me where you want to go in time. Backwards or forwards, your choice," the Doctor said.

Rose glanced at her. Jess shrugged and leaned back against the seat. "Your choice, I'm still recovering from my bout of food poisoning. I'll pick next time."

"Forwards."

Jess zoned out and decided the seat would do just fine. She laid down and promptly went to sleep, again. It was getting a bit ridiculous.

LINE BREAK.

She kicked a leg free from the blanket and tried to go back to sleep. But it was no use, she was too hungry. She sat up and rubbed at her face. A paper crinkled and she peeled the sticky note off her face.

Jess,

Rose and I went to the end of the world. Be back soon. The TARDIS will take care of anything you need.

-The Doctor.

Charming, she thought, and not exactly reassuring. At least he had given her a blanket.

There was barely any light in the control room but as she watched the light slowly brightened.

"Uh, does this work like Siri? TARDIS? Do you happen to know where the kitchen is?"

"The first door on your right when you enter the hallway. It has been moved for your convenience."

Jess yelped and turned around. It was her, but not her. The hair was the same, and the grey of her eyes was almost a perfect match, and her freckles were more or less in the same place, but the posture was all wrong. She had never stood that rigid before in her life.

"You're not me," Jess said.

Not her blinked slowly. "I am the TARDIS interface."

"Okay, why not? Um, thanks."

The interface blinked out.

She pulled the blanket around her body and set off for the kitchen, managing to walk in a straight line. A cup sat on the counter and she sniffed it. Guessing it was chicken broth, she sipped it and settled on a wooden stool. Unable to help herself, she started giggling. She set the cup on the counter and tried to take deep breaths but it was useless. A vague thought of _hysterics_ flitted through her mind as she planted her elbows on the counter and put her head in her hands. It dissolved into her body merely shaking.

LINE BREAK

Two cups of broth and a piece of toast later, the interface led her to a warehouse full of clothes and she had grabbed a black lace top, black skinny jeans, and a pair of cherry red doc martens that looked like they hadn't been touched since the 80's. Jess then made a right turn which somehow led her to a bathroom (in the warehouse no less, she had given up all hope on organization after finding a toga shoved in with stuff from the 1950's) and was relishing her bubble bath. But the water grew cold so she braved hauling herself out of the water and tugged on the clothes.

A drawer in the vanity popped open and she nearly tripped over the bathtub in surprise. Luckily she avoided a concussion and eyed the drawer warily. She stepped closer and grinned when she saw the contents, make up. She said a "thank you" and got to work. She had just finished applying a pin up girl red lip stick when she heard voices.

She nudged the door open and stepped out into a hallway. She opened her mouth, shook her head, and continued in the direction of the voices.

She meandered out into the control room. "So, how was the end of the world?"

The Doctor grinned and pulled her into a hug that lifted her off her feet. "Fantastic. We met a giant head."

She was put back on the ground carefully. "That sounds…fun."

The Doctor laid a hand on the console. "So, where do you want to go?"

And then Jess was hit with a wave of excitement and mild terror. "The past," she said.

 **A/N Hello and thank you to those of you who have followed and favorited this story. Thank you to my reviewer** **sheilaghnoonan. I prefer sausage over bacon. And now for the next question to answer in a review. Do you consider Pluto a planet?**


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